A couple little issues with the release have already emerged. Here’s Euan Garden on SQL Server 2008 Installation Confusion, VS 2008 Sp1 and NetFx 3.5 Sp1: “SQL Server 2008 has dependencies on (and includes) VS 2008 SP1 and its components (BIDS is just VS 2008, SSMS uses components), plus NetFx 3.5sp1. SQL includes the RTM versions of both of these, HOWEVER they are not broadly released yet. There is a check in SQL Server Setup that if you have an old version (Beta, RC, whatever) it will bounce the install and ask you to upgrade to the RTM bits…which of course are not yet available independent of SQL.” Click through for the KB and some other help. Denis Gobo and his readers have some more to say about this.

In all this change, you may lose sight of an important fact or two, and you may ask yourself, how did I get here . . . what version of SQL Server am I running? A couple resources are shared by Kevin Kline.

It looks like Craig Freedman has been busy getting into 2008 itself. In this post on partitioned indexes in SQL Server 2008, he explores how SQL Server 2008 handles scans and seek on partitioned indexes.

Some bloggers have been considering more philosphical questions. The first case in point, Data modeling: art or science?, a lucid examination on SELECT Hints, Tips, Tricks FROM Hugo Kornelis WHERE RDBMS = ‘SQL Server’. I’ll start you with the question Hugo closes with: “I guess the real question is â€¦ why do customers still accept it when they are forced to sign for a model they are unable to understand? Why donâ€™t they say that they will gladly sign for all the requirements they gave, and for all the answers they provided to questions that were asked in a language they understand, but that they insist on the data modeler taking responsibility for his part of the job?”

Dan Guzman’s philosophical query is, Are you a DBA Monkey? What he’s getting at is how institutional memory and de facto standards can affect your own DBA science for the worse.

MySQL bloggers continued to discuss Drizzle, MySQL’s new stripped-down DBMS. Ivan Zoratti contends that Drizzle might be good for Enterprise users: “Is Drizzle good for the Enterprise? It can be! Some people think it’s too difficult to build a modular server with the current core, some others think this is not easy, but possible and preferable. There is an open debate and this is a great start.”

Robert Hodges of The Scale-Out Blog says Drizzle is cool but confusing. He writes, “[There’s] a dark side for Sun’s database business. In addition to unfinished product versions and storage engines, there have now been at least three announced forks of the MySQL code in the last few months. . . . It is thought-provoking that some of the most respected MySQL engineers inside and outside Sun are working on an alternative to the flagship product.”

Baron Schwartz of Xaprb offers what sounds like a big-time technical post: how to scale writes with master-master replication in MySQL. But really, he confesses, it ain’t: “This post is SEO bait for people trying to scale MySQLâ€™s write capacity by writing to both servers in master-master replication. The short answer: you canâ€™t do it. Itâ€™s impossible.” A worthwhile discussion follows.

On An Expert’s Guide to Oracle Technology, Lewis Cunningham bravely explores the world of Oracle licensing, asking, does Oracle require a license for a development database? “The short answer,” writes Lewis, “is that in most cases, yes, we must purchase a license.” Read through for the long answer (and with Oracle licensing, there is always a long answer).

Beth Breidenbach of Confessions of a database geek wants to know what’s in your office. “Here’s your chance to sound off: what are the must-have user tools/resources for your office (at work or at home)?”

On the Postgres OnLine Journal, Leo Hsu and Regina Obe write, “One thing I’m really looking forward to have in the upcoming PostgreSQL 8.4 is the introduction of the WITH RECURSIVE feature that IBM DB2 and SQL Server 2005 already have. Oracle has it too . . .” The post looks at Fibonacci, Graphs and Recursive Queries, but also veers off course a little: “As a slightly off-topic side note – of all the Database magazines I have read – Oracle Magazine is the absolute worst. SQL Server Magazine and IBM DB2 are pretty decent.”

That’s all for now, see you in a week’s time. Don’t forget to get involved in Log Buffer — you can edit and publish an edition of your own, or contribute your favourite blog items. Please email me, and I’ll get you started.